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Sep 23
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Josh Slocum's avatar

And you are most definitely retarded.

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George Romey's avatar

Craziness becomes the normal. It's like the 1990s National Enquirer and The Star are now serious news outlet. Ted Baxter is the newscaster on CNN. Les Nessman from WKRP in Cincinnati is now on PBS. Young people clamor to have the brain of Jethro Bodine. John Water characters are regular townsfolk.

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Shadeborne's avatar

I only understand the reference because of the Zoom meetup you hosted and played the movie.

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Kelly's avatar

Hi Josh. I want to recommend the work of Claire Weekes to you and others who might be struggling with anxiety. She was an early pioneer in the understanding and treatment of nervous illness. (She died in 1990.) Audible has three of her books/talks and I think they’re all free with membership. There's also a recent biography about her. Samuel Eddy has many videos on YouTube based on her principles. I especially like his half-hour guided relaxation called “Claire Weekes FLOATING”. I found these resources in August and since putting them to use my nervous system has recovered substantially. Maybe you could do a podcast episode about her and pass along her wisdom. ❤️

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Neurotic's avatar

A lovely suggestion! Josh, maybe relax and stop noticing the fall of Rome? :)

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Parker W's avatar

I understand you were ultimately making a point (which may be an unspoken and pesky, tacit requirement for modern blog posts), but I deeply enjoyed the ride on your deliciously evocative imagery of this strange bird. I had to read a few passages a couple of times to let it wash over me again. Media has become so utilitarian that it’s thrilling to be able to roll around in words crafted for our delight. Beautiful writing, Josh!

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Natalie C.'s avatar

I really loved this. Especially this paragraph which perfectly encapsulates the woke problem of our modern era: "He was walking down the street just as "proud" as can be. Swaybacked, hunched shoulders, belly proudly jutting. As if this were normal. As if living this way were serious, and something to fight for. As if it were the rest of the world, not him, who is looking at things cockeyed."

Perfect. Just perfect.

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Parker W's avatar

There has been a militant exultation of the uglification of the human body and visage in the name of “queerness”.

I can’t believe that anything other than misery accompanies it.

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Susan's avatar

Militant exultation of the uglification is a great phrase! I'd add, of everything, really, like art, architecture, clothing, etc. This world just SUXX.

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ellenwuzhere's avatar

I laughed out loud at "swaybacked". Masterful.

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Gathering Goateggs's avatar

I used to work in Towson MD in an office building about a five minutes walk from Prospect Hill cemetery. In nice weather we used to sometimes take our lunches and have a picnic close to Divine's grave site (which is marked as a point of interest on Google Maps btw!).

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Daiogenes's avatar

"Is there a circus in town?"

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Gregory S's avatar

Who has the energy to get dolled up like this just to go out and play "look at me don't look at me" games all day and pick fights? And yes they are miserable and no one can convince me otherwise.

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Susan's avatar

If I had to guess, I'd say somebody without a job, either on disability or living at home with their parents --- whom they hate --- paying their bills.

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Connecting The Dots's avatar

Most will never go deeper than the surface mocking, scoffing and disgust, when encountering these ever increasing totems of the new, modern, woke world. You did and hopefully people understood, the bottom line, through your observation.

That being, every expressed insult from this juggernaut of a movement, is a drop of poison in the communal well. Everyday that this builds is a day another very young child is mentally groomed to see this as normal. And every one of those very young children who become adults, will use that "normal" to build and form societies in it's image.

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Adam David Worrall אדם's avatar

The likelihood of seeing such people "in the wild" today is like chancing upon a lesbian at a Melissa Etheridge concert.

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Neurotic's avatar

I think those are better looking, or at least were during Etheridge's heyday. Plus, that crowd had no sex/gender confusion. :)

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D. Minor's avatar

Holy Hell...and I learned a new word: insouciance!

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